Prague

Play rehearsal in theatre

Negus: A theatre is hardly the most obvious place to

begin a profile of a world leader. But the Balustrade

Theatre in old Prague is where Vaclav Havel's plays,

lampooning the old totalitarian bureaucracy, were first

produced and still are.

Negus with Havel in

theatre

Negus: Back in the bad old days when Havel's plays

were banned, they were performed in secret. Now that

the playwright is the president, his plays can be

performed openly.

Press conference

Cheering

Negus: November 1989, an extraordinary drama in

another Prague theatre. The country's communist rulers

have just capitulated and resigned. A moment for real

jubilation. It was from this stage that Civic Forum, a

loose coalition of intellectuals, students and workers,

led by Vaclav Havel, scripted the communist downfall.

Cheering

Chanting

Crowd

Negus: Elsewhere in the old Eastern Bloc there have

been scenes of violence. But here on the streets of

Prague, what turned out to be Europe's, if not the

world's, most gentle revolution, was building to a climax.

Chanting

Negus

Negus: When the communists finally gave in,

amazingly without a fight, a new chant went up '

Havel nha Hrad' -'Havel to the castle' - a typically

poetic Czech way of saying 'Havel for President.'

Cheering

Presidential palace

Negus: And so, to the castle he went. The old political

guard left in disgrace, and a new one arrived, breathing

fresh life into old institutions. They anti-establishment

figure took charge of the establishment. There may

have been stranger transitions in political history, but

it's not easy to think of one.

Negus in palace

Negus: Thankfully, five years as head of state hasn't

blunted Havel's individuality. Inside, for our private

meeting, his eccentric style is very much in evidence.

Negus: This is definitely not your normal President's

office, but then again, we're not dealing with a normal

President.

Negus meets Havel

Negus: Havel was as unprepared as anyone for the

downfall of communism. As President, he had to start

from scratch. And in the years that followed he's lost

plenty of political battles. However he has earned

respect. Not so much as a politician, but as his

country's moral authority, and as a figure on the world

stage.

Surprisingly, despite all his time in the international

spotlight, Havel still seems self-conscious in front of the

camera. He remains a shy intellectual.

Negus

Negus: Could I ask you, do you see yourself as a

different kind of leader?

Havel

Havel: Most Presidents spend their whole lives

preparing for this moment. They attend appropriate

schools and educational establishments, become

members in various political youth organisations, and

later they climb higher and higher, until one day they

become presidents. I fell into it all like a man falling off a

bridge into a river.

Negus

Negus: You seem to reject any attempt to categorise

you politically. So you're not left, not right, not socialist,

not capitalist. Does that make you something of an

ideological eunuch?

Havel

Havel: I am a person who is constantly open to the

world, who is in some manner seeking the truth and

using his own mind. Any identification with an

ideological movement or doctrine leads, a priori, to a

distortion of my own way of thinking. Or rather it

somehow, from the outset, constricts this openness of

mind.

Jazz band

Music

Negus: "Openness of mind" is hardly a political platform

designed to win votes. Despite hero status after the

revolution, Czech intellectuals didn't prove to be any

more popular with the electorate than they do

elsewhere. And in 1992 elections, Havel's fellow

dissidents from Civic Forum, were trounced.

Czechs, like most post-communist east Europeans,

voted for parties promising speedy market reforms.

Urban

Negus: Jan Urban was a leading dissident and

colleague of Havel's. He made a conscious decision to

stay out of politics and turned his attention instead to

reforming Czech journalism. He's quite blunt about

where the dissidents, including Havel, went wrong.

Urban: We were absolutely unprepared for the change.

We never dreamt even about taking power, and within

10 days, within a fortnight, we were on the top of

everything. And everybody just loved us, waved to us,

took us as heroes. So we thought we had unlimited time

and unlimited resources to think how to deal with it.

Reality proved to be very different and very soon.

Negus

Negus: Is he the same man now as he was when he

went to the palace?

Urban

Urban: He wears the same sweater. He's a very

different man. He learned the value of institutions, he

learned that he just cannot go to the parliament and

stand at a microphone and say "Listen guys, I have a

splendid idea, I need you to vote for it" - As he did

several times at the beginning.

Negus

Negus: Does that mean that the moral authority has

become a conformist?

Urban

Urban: No, he became a politician.

Vaclav Klaus

entering press

conference

Negus: There are actually two Vaclavs in Czech

politics. this is the other - Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus,

whose party of unapologetic free marketeers controls

the Parliament.

Negus: Klaus probably can, and does, take credit for

overseeing a more successful transition to capitalism

than any of the countries of the old Soviet bloc.

Like Havel, Klaus can be high handed, and his

combative style has led to some celebrated stoushes

with the President over how the country should be run.

Music

Havel in village

Negus: We got a chance to see Havel perform as

President in the villages of Moravia in the south of the

republic. Five years into the job, the philosopher has

learned the political game - the obligatory street walk,

pressing the flesh, meeting local officials. But it's not a

role he's altogether comfortable playing.

Negus: Do you sometimes think back to your old life

and, apart from being in jail and being spied on, do you

sometimes think that maybe you should have stayed

with your old life?

Havel: Of course I sometimes miss the life of an

independent intellectual who does not have to grant

audiences, does not have to receive state visits, does

not have to comment on everything. And who sits at

home, studies, reads, writes, and every now and then,

visits a pub. I don't hide the fact that this is something

that I at times feel a certain nostalgia for. But I cannot

say that I miss the previous eras of my life.

Havel making toast

Negus: How about the future of Vaclav Havel, what do

you see the future being for you? Do you intend

keeping on in this job, or as you said recently, are you

looking forward to becoming a pensioner?

Havel

Havel: No president would, three years prior to the

expiry date of his term in office, say either that he will

run again, or on the other hand, that he will not. He'd

have to be crazy to disclose this so early on.

Negus

Negus: That's a very political answer from a very nonpolitical

person.